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Thursday, 12 June 2014

Have You Missed A Stop In Life?

It must have been the potent combination of heat and exhaustion, I fell asleep on the train one afternoon on my way home from work. Startled when the train halted, I groggily looked around and exclaimed, "S**t, I missed my stop!"At that point, an elderly woman uttered back at me while smiling, "That's life."

I rushed off to catch the next train in the opposite track, that I only ever had a moment to think about what she said when I was already comfortably sitting.

via imgfave.com

She's right. Life can indeed be a series of missed stops. I thought about opportunities and chances (but didn't think that hard as I might miss my stop again) that offered me no train back to catch up. Yes, there are stops that I deliberately ignored; stops I nearly missed but got out of the door just in time; stops I missed because I wasn't paying attention; the right stops which I thought were the wrong ones, so I went back in to the carriage, and realised it was actually the right stop, but the train has already pulled out and the next one back is not guaranteed a certain hour; and then there are stops where I got mugged, learned a little too hard that I never went back. Have you missed very important stops in your life? Did you try to catch a ride back?While musing about it, I compiled inspiring quotes by favourite authors, essayists, and celebrities on missing chances, moments and possibilities whether in life or love. Pick your favourite.

“How much I missed, simply because I was afraid of missing it.”
―
Paulo Coelho,
Brida

“We often miss opportunity because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work”
―
Thomas Edison

“Let me tell ya. You gotta pay attention to signs. When life reaches out
with a moment like this it's a sin if you don't reach back... I'm
telling you.”
―
Matthew Quick,
The Silver Linings Playbook

“When a great moment knocks on the door of your life, it is often no
louder than the beating of your heart, and it is very easy to miss it. ”
―
Boris Pasternak

“Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back.
That's part of what it means to be alive. But inside our heads - at
least that's where I imagine it - there's a little room where we store
those memories. A room like the stacks in this library. And to
understand the workings of our own heart we have to keep on making new
reference cards. We have to dust things off every once in awhile, let
in fresh air, change the water in the flower vases. In other words,
you'll live forever in your own private library.”
―
Haruki Murakami,
Kafka on the Shore

“The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.”
―
Harriet Beecher Stowe

“All discarded lovers should be given a second chance, but with somebody else.”
―
Mae West,
Wit & Wisdom of Mae West

“I wrote the story myself. It's about a girl who lost her reputation and never missed it.”

- Mae West

“Never pass up a chance to have sex or appear on television.”
―
Gore Vidal

“The problem with temptation is that you may not get another chance.”

―
Laurence J. Peter

Nothing is more expensive than a missed opportunity.

- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.

And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.

No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.”

- Pink Floyd

Adventure may hurt but monotony will kill you. - Author Unknown

“To have the chance of being loved we have to take a chance on being destroyed inside”
―
Jo Nesbø,
The Devil's Star

Sometimes, the better chance you have is not the one that you missed, but the one you're living now....

“There was another life that I might have had, but I am having this one.”
―
Kazuo Ishiguro

I love reading these types of quotes. I come across a few on Instagram which stop me in my track (excuse the pun). I have a lot of regrets in life, I think that's the same thing - they range from what I chose to study to what I didn't study; from what I chose to buy to what I didn't choose to buy; from the friends I made to the friends I lost etc. People say you shouldn't dwell on regrets or 'missed stops' but I guess that's human nature to do so.

I've never missed my stop on public transport though - I've got lost so had to go back in the opposite direction but not missed a stop per se.

I'm sure that I have missed many stops in my life but if I hadn't then I wouldn't be on the track that I am currently at. If I had been on a smooth journey from A to B, life would be not as exciting, dramatic, sad and happy. As someone told me yesterday, the destination is the journey.

Completely agree. I think a journey that's too straight down the line is boring. I would say that there are experiences I'd rather have not gone through coz I sometimes see them as irrelevant, but then again, maybe there's a reason for it in the future.

This was certainly a thought provoking post. I try not to dwell too much on the past or think about whether I may have missed any opportunities (I hope I haven't missed too many!) Living in the moment and making the best of every day is an an approach to life which i'm trying to adopt. What a great choice of quotes here too.

I really enjoyed this post. It's true, sadly I think I have missed a couple of opportunities in life because of being afraid of doing something in the past, when I was younger. These days, I have learnt to live it up and take every chance possible to enjoy life and have no regrets! Great quotes and I love that Noah's Ark image, haha.

Thank you, Madison. Same here, I try to do as much, but not to the point that I end up burnt out in the process. As miss b says, live in the moment. Have a lovely weekend! Yes, loved that image, too. The only two who didn't make it to the ark. Haha.

THE NUTTER BEHIND THIS IS. . .

Unravelling life when not dozing off during my train ride...
A book-sniffing pessoptimist restrained thinking introvert (those Facebook-sponsored personality tests can get quite addictive), I'm happy to engineer things in the background to avoid the limelight. I love lakes, rivers, G&T, and independent magazines. I went from aspiring to be a majorette when I was little to a forensic pathologist when I realised that white knee-high boots aren't chic. Sunrise, sunset, dawn and midnight, horror flicks, crime TV shows, libraries, museums, new books, black roll neck, jasmine green tea, dry shampoo, dancing, full moon, wintry beaches, mountain views, history, black and white photos, chandeliers, silence, alone time, red lipstick: these are a few of my favourite things.